


All The Pieces Matter

by Native



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (though the mafia bit isn't exactly the focus I guess), Hux Has Issues, Kylo Ren Probably Has Issues But It's Hard To Know For Sure, Kylux 2016 May Exchange, M/M, Mafia AU, Something of a study in denial and emotional stunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:23:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6637189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Native/pseuds/Native
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“What are you still doing here?” Ren had finally asked, and Hux had squashed his cigarette on the windowsill and left and hated, hated,</i> hated <i>him.</i></p><p>Mafia!AU for the Kylux 2016 May Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Pieces Matter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ald0us](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/gifts).



> For the Kylux 2016 May Exchange! Mafia AU. (Un-betaed, sadly. Don't hesitate if you see a mistake or something weird.) 
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome — and comments are love :)

It’s almost dusk when Hux finally gets to the house, after driving through sinuous, half-forgotten paths, and wondering more than once if he’s lost. Even the waning sun above, dripping blood orange almost red, doesn’t seem to have any hold in this place. The trees are as numerous as they are high; spring has only just come and gone but he shivers in the shadows they shape. Nobody comes through the entry door to greet him. He chooses to wait for a moment and watches, careful. There is no sign of life coming from any of the three floors, not a sound, not a light. He hasn’t approached yet but there is a peculiar feeling under his ribs when he lets his gaze linger on the towering house, wood dark like the forest trees peppered with lighter, damaged parts.  
  
He smooths down his pants as he approaches the wooden stairs to the patio, does the same with his jacket; stops himself from feeling for the gun in the holster—because surely, he’s not that weak. Won’t be, even if he’s unsettled, as Ren’s crippling paranoia, certainly more disease than care, would never allow anyone to arrive here without the man himself being anywhere in sight. Hux won’t be so foolish as to think that the man trusts him, even after all the time they've known one another. He takes the three steps gingerly, but they creak and though he covers the distance in two great strides, so does the flooring. He doesn’t open the door, doesn’t knock yet, tries to listen, again, for noise inside instead. He has no procedure to follow, no plan for this situation.

The first time he came to the house, he’d picked Ren up two hours after leaving the city, had been summarily relegated to being a mere passenger in his own car. It had been one of the first personal grievances he’d added to his tally against the other man, after all those he didn’t have a face to match to. The old man had tasked him with Ren’s demands a few months after taking Hux as one of his trusted lieutenants, and still it had taken two years after that to meet him in person.

He hadn't even known who it was, at first; had been waiting for the old man to show for a meeting, except it had been one of these rare times when he wasn’t waiting alone. Someone had already been seated in the room when he arrived, and Hux had had to do a conscious effort not to show any surprise. You didn’t meet the boss in person if you were no one—and he had known that and still not suspected who the beast of a man across the table was, because he has always imagined Ren as something of a whelp, even as Ren’s reputation grew more and more. A weakling, a small thing, unable to do his own bidding, forced to rely on others, on Hux, only being allowed to because it was Snoke’s will. He knew it was a fantasy borne of frustration, indulged all the same.   
  
Ren had ignored him then, of course. He had been looking at a black notebook, a little thing that’d go in any pocket, had not even raised his head when Hux had entered and then stood, motionless, at the entrance, for an unnatural second. Hux had thought it a small mercy then, even as he wondered why no one had told him about the other man in the room. The mansion seemed emptier than usual, too, though the times when it had been bustling with activity had been slowly slipping away for a few years now. After regaining his composure, Hux had approached; nodded in greetings at he seated himself, but still the man had ignored him, seemingly fascinated by what he was reading, not realizing, Hux had thought, who had just entered.  
  
Hux had then tried his best to take in his features without being too obvious, trying to remember who the hell he could be, choosing to ignore that he wouldn’t have forgotten this man if he had ever met him.

Even seated, it felt like he dwarfed his surroundings. He was too tall, too wide, his shoulders and arms stretching his black turtleneck, his chest too strong under it. His hair was dark and too long, reflecting the harsh morning light and still somewhat wild even though it had been tied into a neat bun, and Hux's lips had almost curled at that. The shape of his nose was too unique, the moles that dotted his cheekbones too numerous; Hhe couldn't very well see his eyes, but he could see a generous mouth. Like the moles and the nose, it should have softened his features, didn't. Maybe if he had smiled; maybe if he had talked, said something, anything. As it was, his face had been and stayed unmoving, showing no feeling in particular even when he had been called forth to see Snoke.

Hux had watched his departure, still curious and unafraid; had taken in the rest of the man's simple clothes when he stood, dark jeans and black combat boots that had seen better days, and disliked them even more than the rest. It wasn’t what Snoke expected of his subordinates, certainly not what Hux expected of himself, bespoke suits to both hide what he really was and display what it gained him.

He'd left with great strides and not even a second of hesitation, which to Hux could only mean that he didn’t know where he'd walked in. He'd felt something like sorry, for him.  
  
Only a few minutes later, Hux had seen him storming off Snoke’s room while speaking in the receiver of some kind of blocky phone in what sounded like the Arabic Hux’s father whispered sometimes in the dead of night, when he was asleep. He had not asked Snoke what that was about, and the the other man hadn’t volunteered anything.  
  
Still, Hux had found himself poking around, wondering who he was, asking about him. The old man always had his fingers in a lot of pies, and Hux was aware of most, if not all of them, or at least had thought so. It ate at him, not knowing; ate at him even more when no one had anything to say about the mysterious stranger, and more still when he saw the very same man no more than a few weeks after, speaking with Ioanna Phasma during one of the reunions Snoke prized that always made Hux bristle. Putting that many members of the organization in the same place was only inviting trouble, and the old man tended to show less and less of himself as years passed, but he would not relent, refusing to admit that times had changed. Changed enough than a man like this one had been invited in the first place, even.  
  
They would have made something of a stunning couple, Phasma and him, if only they had cared to show themselves. As it was, they seemed content to observe from the sidelines, seated in chairs knew Hux to be supremely uncomfortable in a corner of the room; making themselves smaller than they were, almost, talking among themselves, glancing around once in a while in a eerily similar, unassuming way. They stayed close to one another all evening, and Phasma even laughed once. So small a thing, but she had seemed delighted, if only for an instant, and Hux had worked with her numerous times and never seen anything like this. The man had sat back in his chair then, his posture relaxed, showing his back to Hux, who had clenched his hand around his glass and not known why.  
  
Hux had lost him, them, after that, called away by Snoke. Neither of them had been in sight when he came back.  
  
(A member of the organization is murdered a few days later. _Kylo Ren_ , people whispers, and Snoke says nothing at all, and that’s what confirms it for Hux. He doesn’t think of the man.)  
  
It would have been easy to piece together, maybe, if Hux had seen the man more and more around Snoke after that, but that’s not what happens. What happens is that he doesn’t see the man anymore, doesn’t see Phasma either because she’s left to work on the acquiring on new suppliers for the East Coast operations.  
  
( _Boots on the ground_ , she had told him, with something like a smile, and somewhere deep it still rankled, that she had been military and had been good at it and could have been even better but had chosen this anyway.)  
  
What happens is that Ren falls completely off the radar for half a year, without showing him the courtesy of letting him know. Tasks and demands forgotten save for the one time when one of Ren's subordinates calls with Ren's phone, and Hux doesn't ask, only confirms with Snoke that Ren is still alive, that it's not a trap of some kind. It's not. 

When Ren returns Hux doesn’t learn of it until he enters Snoke’s chamber to find the man from six months ago there, and he doesn't even have the time to ask why because the old man says,  
  
“You have always demonstrated a great loyalty to this organization, and your contributions have had a significant impact in making it greater still. It is time that I introduce you to one who share these same qualities,”  
  
(He should have known.)  
  
“This is Kylo Ren.”  
  
There hadn’t even been any time to say something, anything, because a phone had vibrated in Ren’s pocket and off he had gone after a brief nod to Snoke, the notebook from almost a year ago back in hand, a twisted mirror of their first encounter. Hux had stayed behind, always behind, and clenched his fists behind his back until the voice had dwindled to nothing. He had not seen Ren again that day, had not seen him for months until Ren had driven him to the house and told him, _there will be times when you will need to come to me yourself._  
  
He replays the memory in his head often—the waiting, the room, Snoke and the easy dismissal and Ren, Ren when he wasn’t Ren—trying to find what he could have done differently, how could he have achieved something less bitter and more like a victory. Hux had provided everything Ren had ever asked for and respected his every stipulations, only to realize that the only thing Ren would ever give him in return was casual disregard, but he still did it. 

He hates the old man for putting him in this position, for asking him to play errand boy because his favorite can’t be arsed to come to him instead—as far as Hux knows, Ren hasn’t been to the city in the last few years, and more than once he’s told himself that it was for the better. It’s a peculiar thing, really, for such a peculiar man; that Ren would dislike something so much that he’d tolerate other people meddling in his affairs, even if only to serve his own interests.  
  
A sharp wind comes suddenly, leafing through the forest and picking up in intensity; there’s a whistling between the trees. It's almost like being shaked awake. Hux decides to enter, does so without announcing himself, without knocking, and regrets it instantly. He waits, for a long second, for Ren to burst into view from wherever he may have been, is disappointed. The breeze is climbing up his back and there’s only silence. Maybe Ren isn’t even here; maybe he expects Hux to drop off what he asked for and go on his way without disturbing the house—not because he doesn’t think him capable of it, but because he's convinced that Hux fears him, that he wouldn’t dare.  
  
With more care than is necessary, Hux closes the door behind him.  
  
Like most of the house, the hall is wood, and bare. There's nothing on the walls, no furniture at all, only the same black carpet as the other times on the floor. There are imprints of imprints on it, old and new, someone going in and out. With every step Hux makes, he hears something creak. As he enters what should be the living room, he’s surprised to see a table, a huge thing made for seating a dozen people, and enough chairs to go by. Some chairs are pulled up; one in particular is turned in the direction of the main window, three sizes too big for a house as old as this one seems to be. None of these things are things Ren has asked of him; they’re made of wood, a dark color like the trees outside, like the house itself, but bathed in the dying light look brown almost golden, and Hux dislikes them on sight.

And then there is a _sound_.

Not a cry, not exactly a howl. More like a muffled plea, from another room. From—that room.  
  
Once or twice a trimester, Hux is given either a task or a list. (The few times there weren't any, Hux had deemed himself fortunate. The first time it had happened, he had wondered if Ren had died, if he was unwell, and asked Snoke about it. The old man had looked at him with something like interest in his eyes and not answered. Hux had not asked again.)  
  
Hux suspects that no one knows what Ren does with all of it, doubts that their boss himself knows, doubts that either of them know Ren at all, sometimes. The small number of times he’s seen him haven’t given Hux much insight about the man; they only stand out so much because there are so few of them, because Ren is a singular phenomenon in itself. Because once or twice a trimester, Hux is given either a task or a list; something to find, something to give him.  
  
Someone, once. Ren had taken the man from Hux’s trunk and carried him inside the house as if he weighted nothing, to the room on the left. To that room.  
  
Ren had looked at him after, when Hux was standing in the barren living-room, smoking a cigarette, appearing unaffected. Curious, really, even more so because Ren had stayed for almost thirty minutes in the room, and there hadn't been any noise. Everyone may not know his face, but there are few who are ignorant of what he can do. Ren will make you _speak_ , will make you _talk_ , and you will tell the truth. Hux doesn’t doubt that it's all exaggerated, that a good chunk of Ren's reputation is due to how the man shrouds himself in anonymity. Their boss wouldn't tolerate him if he wasn’t somewhat useful, that much he knows, but useful in what, Hux cannot say. Ren’s supposed talents have never benefited him directly, even as he's the one sacrificing precious resources to grant his every wishes.  
  
When Ren had come out, he had looked at Hux leaning against the window for a long while. Dark eyes and dark hair and his skin had been less pale than when Hux had last seen him, but he was still wearing the same kind of clothes, black all over, with the addition of leather gloves. There was no table to separate them then, only Ren’s eyes upon him, and Hux, who prided himself in his ability to read people, had been unable to decipher their intent, had felt more out of his depth than when his father had introduced him to Snoke; had wondered if Ren was judging him, if Ren was thinking about whether to silence him, but it was only one man and there had been many other men before, and he couldn't not see how valuable Hux was to him.  
  
“What are you still doing here?” Ren had finally asked, and Hux had squashed his cigarette on the windowsill and left and hated, hated, _hated_ him.  
  
He doesn’t remember the ride to Arcadia, all five hours of it; the red tint of rage, and what seethed below.

Today, if Ren had wanted to see him, he would have, Hux reasons; maybe his lack of manners is a reaction to what happened then, another manifestation of his idiosyncrasies. But he had not seemed angry, nor puzzled, not even inquisitive, not anything Hux had a word for. He resolves to go get Ren's things from his car and to drop them off right there in the room. It won’t be his problem anymore after that, though even as he’s thinking it, Hux knows that he’s kidding himself. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that Snoke and Ren are bound by blood, for how much the latter is favored by the former.  
  
Outside, the wind takes Hux by surprise; there is barely any light left, and as he piles boxes upon boxes, he can only think that he doesn’t even know if the house has working electricity. He does one trip, then another, taking the steps with care every time, even more so the fourth time around. What Ren intends to do with an historical artifact, he doesn't know. It's nothing but an oddly shaped dagger to him, ivory and gold with a hilt like a cross, and Ren had huffed, almost like a laugh at the other end of that call, said it was a _khanjar_.  
  
Maybe there was no point in procuring it at all and it’s only a hobby to him; accumulating things from days past, or maybe making Hux go to new lengths to meet his needs. Maybe he’s trying to trip him up, because he dislikes how the old man seems to rely on Hux more and more, maybe all it's ever been was a test.  
  
When Hux turns from the living room on his way out, he sees that the double doors of the room are wide open, and he spies someone in the room, but it’s not Ren. From Hux’s vantage point, it could appear as if the man is seated into what seems to be a metal chair, on the other side of a metal table. The windows behind him are obscured by some kind of interior blinds, and the more Hux approaches, the better he sees the marks on his cheekbones, black and some green already. There are some kind of chains that bind his arms to both the chair and the floor. A board creaks enough to make him stop in his tracks and the man rises his head. Their eyes meet, but only for a moment before they both hear someone coming. Hux knows who it is without even needing to look; does it anyway.

It’s been a little more than four months, and Ren is exactly as Hux pictured him during this time.

He looks at Hux, then at the room, and his brow furrows but he says nothing. He has a glass of water in his hand and Hux didn’t even know there was something like a kitchen there. Soon enough, he smooths the expression from his face, enters. As soon as he does, the man abandons all pretense of apathy, of weakness, and watches him keenly as he goes around the table, to him. Hux sees him clench his fists, curl upon himself as if to do something, anything, and is as shocked as the man when Ren closes his free hand, swift and unforgiving, on the upper part of his throat, and then lifts him by a few centimeters in a clank of chains.  
  
Hux can see how the man is forced to swallow his gasp; how the vessels of his throat are working against Ren’s hand, and how Ren’s arm doesn’t tremble, how his gaze doesn’t falter upon the man’s face as he watches all resistance drain out of him, a moment like an eternity, before setting him down.  
  
“Open your mouth.”  
  
The other is stubborn, remarkably so. His eyes are defiant still, even after all he’s clearly already been through, even when confronted to the beast of a man that Ren is, even with his hand still upon him, strong and sure. When he still doesn’t comply, Hux watches Ren apply pressure on the man’s jaw to force him to open, the fingers digging in the skin, in the bruises, until he relents. At least he has enough sense to not try to bite him, Hux thinks dimly as Ren brings the glass to his mouth. The man struggles at first, hesitating between drinking and spitting it all out; makes his choice when Ren grasps him a little tighter, a little meaner. Water drips on his chin, on his throat and on Ren’s hands for a few seconds as he struggles until Ren relaxes his hold.  
  
The man drinks with his eyes closed but Hux still sees the wetness around them, the defeated set of his shoulders. He drinks, and Ren’s hand has ceased to serve a purpose but is still laying there, his thumb in the hollow of his throat. Hux watches how Ren leans against the table, watches him watches the man while the latter gulps the last of the drink. Once he's done, Ren lets him go none too gently and goes to leave the room. Hux takes a step back, without thinking.  
  
“I'm pretty sure it's not how you've been raised. You could have at least bought me dinner first.”  
  
Ren doesn’t turn to look at the man after his desperate quip, and Hux doesn’t want to either. Relief courses through him when Ren closes the doors.

“I’ve come with what you asked for. It’s in the other room,” he says, and is proud of how his voice doesn’t give anything away. What it would give away exactly, he doesn’t know; feels stupid, foolish because of that.  
  
“Good,” is Ren’s only answer before he crosses the hallway, puts the glass on the table and puts a knee on the floor next to the boxes. He starts picking at the packagings, opening them and, from what Hux can tell, checking that everything he asked for is here.  
  
He tells himself that it’s only natural, and certainly one of the more understandable habits Ren may have. He does the same with his suppliers; checks the books at random, too. Snoke taught him how to test his people’ loyalty, how to press on their weak points to break them open and see the truth of what laid inside. Snoke also told him that there was no one as gifted as Ren in these matters, and when Hux had wanted to know more, had once again said nothing else at all.  
  
“When have I ever not given you everything you wanted?”  
  
He knows he's crossed a line before finishing his sentence. Ren is watching him with interest, and it very well may be the first time that there isn’t a hint of his usual—remoteness. If Hux was a lesser man, he'd feel uncertain under the scrutiny, would be scrambling to right his misstep, but as mighty as Ren may be, he can hold his own as well. He stops his fists from clenching, barely.  
  
“And would you give me _anything_ I wanted?”  
  
The last of the sunlight is barely filtering through the window, no more than a flicker. Some of it is trapped in Ren’s hair, around his shoulder, on his face. He doesn’t smile; there is a weight in what he says, though as the other man rises, a lightness overcomes Hux, who doesn’t need to think about his answer.  
  
“Obviously,” he retorts. Isn’t that the implication of what he has just said? That he has never, in years, betrayed Ren’s expectations, that he doesn’t have any intention to do so. That…  
  
Ren swiftly covers the distance between them.  
  
“Because Snoke demands it of you?” Ren asks, now completely in his space, the few centimeters he has on Hux feeling like much more.  
  
Before he can reply, Hux feels rather than sees two large hands settle in the hollow of his hips, under his jacket, and _squeeze_. For a hot second, it’s as if his lungs are the ones being cradled; he tries to say something, doesn’t even know what, why, but when he does Ren clutches him even tighter and brings himself even closer, his mouth a breath away from Hux’s and his hands cold through the fabric.

Hux had always resented him for it; the width of him, the strength of his frame—how easy it had to make it…  
  
“Or because you want to?”  
  
Ren's stillness is a trap. Hux doesn’t think that he’s ever felt more like prey, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to catch the other man’s gaze, even as he’s doing nothing to free himself from his hold. The intensity he finds there almost scares him; he had never noticed it before, not like this, and when Ren glances to the door behind which the other man is chained, there’s a treacherous whisper in his mind that says, _maybe it’s because he's never looked at you before_.  
  
The press of Ren’s mouth against his takes him by surprise. His lips are cold, it’s over before it even started and there is no taste lingering, almost as if it didn't happen at all. Hux wants more. He puts his own hands on Ren, on his arms and then his shoulders and it’s like a transgression, like everything he never allowed himself to have, as Ren doesn’t reject him and instead comes even closer, his hands slipping from his waist to go around his back, the kind of embrace only lovers should have. When Ren kisses him again, mouth against mouth, it's too slow to deny and Hux feels himself become red all over, could stay like this for hours, strong arms drawing him ever closer to the other man. He swallows a whimper when Ren suddenly tightens his embrace, his tongue lightly tracing his lower lip.  
  
“Come with me,” Ren says suddenly, showing Hux the stairs in the back, the ones he’s never taken.  
  
(He should go, should forget about this. Forget about Ren’s voice when he calls, just— _forget_.)  
  
Ren makes him take them first. Hux doesn’t know where he’s going, is hot under his collar, knows the warmth on his cheeks and the stiffness in his pants for what they are, at he goes up step by step, knowing that Ren is behind him, watching. Had he been a lesser man, he would have squirmed under this scrutiny he feels but cannot see; he only shudders lightly once, when one of the other man’s hands linger for a second on his right hip, bites his lip (—but Ren can’t see him either, so surely, that doesn’t count).

The first floor seems to be nothing more than a sequence of halls and rooms, Hux notes before Ren puts his hands on him again, embracing him from behind, his breath around the juncture of his neck and throat. There’s a tingle in his fingers, something in his throat, a desire unlike any other that only mounts in intensity until Ren pushes him, almost tender, in the direction of the first door to the left.  
  
The room is almost barren, and not for the first time, Hux wonders what Ren does with everything he gives him. There are two duffel bags in a corner, a desk and a chair that have seen better days, a pair of rangers under the former, and nothing else apart from a huge bed that, Hux suspects, is more of an accommodation for Ren’s size than a real luxury in itself. Said bed is done, sheets crisply arranged and this tidbit of information would gnaw at him if Ren hadn’t made him turn around and started to kiss him again, still as unhurried as before, but with something like fire under it as he starts to remove Hux’s belt.

 

When Hux opens his eyes, it’s well past morning and for what may be the first time in years, the only thing he wants is to stay right where he is; naked under the sheet, with a heaviness he's never known to his body, the glow of the sun on his skin making him sleepy. When he tries to get on his side, he discovers aches that make him flush when he remembers bits and pieces of Ren touching him, everywhere and right _there_ in particular, first with his hands through his underthings, then teasing with his fingers and then with his cock, huge and so terribly hard against him, until he had taken what Hux was giving him, more than once.   
  
(It would almost make him tremble, to remember how Ren has treated him, careful as if he was breakable, and with any other he would have been awash with rage, but—the delicate way Ren had griped Hux’s wrists and made him sit on his lap after getting them both naked, kissing the moans Hux let out when he felt a mouth on his neck, hands on his nipples and then his cock, and finally as nimble fingers pushed in and out of him.)

He would stay, if he could. Knows he cannot, and that Ren has already left the bed anyway; wonders, with a hesitation that isn’t like him (but is he ever like himself when it comes to Ren) about an encore.  
  
It takes Hux a lot of willpower to get upright but that’s not something he’s ever lacked. It smells like them and the woods, like Ren. Soon enough, the sheets end up pooled by the end of the bed and Hux puts one foot on the floor, and then another. The wood is warm where the sun has touched it, and he thinks, idly, of how Ren would certainly hate the tiles of his penthouse, every one of them a perfect white.  
  
He would almost put a word on it, what he feels, but the bags in the corner aren't there anymore, he realizes, blinking. His clothes sit on the desk, neatly piled; he doesn't see the boots that were under the chair, even as it doesn’t seem to have been disturbed. _He can’t have gone_ , Hux reasons as he goes to dress. _Not with the man in the room. Not with everything I brought him_ , he tells himself, but there is no man and no Ren and not a thing left behind, only him.


End file.
